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Transforming Vaccine Delivery - 3D Printed Micro-Needle

5 Oct 2021

Credit To; All3DP.com

Heres a great research project discovered at All3DP Pro and once in a while one pops up that’s too amazing not to share. Scientists at Stanford University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have created a 3D printed micro-needle patch that enables people to painlessly self-administer vaccines.

The needle patch was found to provide 10-times greater protection than a typical vaccine shot delivered into an arm muscle with a needle jab, according to a study conducted in animals and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The additive manufacturing technology for the micro-needle patch comes from Carbon, the 3D printer maker. The micro-needle patches were 3D printed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill using a prototype 3D printer invented by Carbon co-founded Joseph M. DeSimone, who is also a professor of translational medicine and chemical engineering at Stanford University and professor emeritus at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Although micro-needle patches have been studied for decades, the work by this latest group of scientists overcomes some past challenges, specifically the ability to easily customize the patches and the ability to print patches that retain their sharpness.

“Our approach allows us to directly 3D print the micro-needles which gives us lots of design latitude for making the best micro-needles from a performance and cost point-of-view,” says lead study author Shaomin Tian, researcher in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in the UNC School of Medicine.

In years to come, we may see the ease of using a vaccine patch lead to higher vaccination rates worldwide.

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